Hate me today
by InLunaticThirteens
Summary: Random little one shot I wrote after listening to Hate me on repeat during my latest Tony Stark obsession. A bit of a behind the scenes/angst theme, with the help of an anonymous woman. T to be safe.


How they had even gotten to this point was a mystery to Tony. Why he was laying in his bed, alone and sober, was an even bigger mystery to him. He was depressed, he was alone; so why wasn't he drunk? Because it was one of the millions of reasons why it had torn them apart. In some sick, twisted, and bizarre way, he was glad that it had happened, it had given him the strength to fix that part of himself.

No, she had fixed more than that about him. More than anyone knew was actually wrong. There were parts of himself he could never truly accept or love, but she'd managed to get him to like them.

Sighing, he closed his eyes and rolled over, playing the memory over in his head.

_He'd been drunk again, which usually was the beginning scene of these moments. He was leaning against the tub, head lolled down to his chest, his hands clasped around a bottle and resting atop his knees as he rolled some thoughts around._

"_Tony?" The sound of her voice had been enough to cause his head to snap up and pull him out of his thoughts. "Hm?"_

_She didn't say anything for a moment, just stared at him before finally kneeling down in front of him, nonchalantly taking the bottle from his hands. Tony knew that she had hoped he didn't notice, but he had. He just wasn't going to fight her over it. "What's wrong?"_

_Chewing on his tongue, he tried to figure out where to start. "What do you think of when you hear 'suicidal hate'?" He remembered the smile she gave, how many seconds it had taken her to respond, and how positively relieved she seemed to be that it was just another philosophical debate._

Fighting back the tears, he rolled on to his other side, causing him to face her side of the bed. That caused a small, bitter chuckle. It may have been designated her side, but they spent most of the time on top of each other, both sleeping and other. He knew he'd never need porn, all he would need was the memories with her.

But he also remembered what she had called him. "Selfish lover" had never bothered him until he heard the words fall from her lips. But he had never honestly loved someone until he'd met her. They had become so close that even Pepper had started to get a bit jealous. That hadn't mattered to him, though, he would have been glad to drop Pepper if it meant he'd had made her more comfortable.

But then the day came when he was drunk and the familiarity of Pepper had gotten in the way. Why he had chosen Pepper that night he never truly understood. It had been she that had accepted and listened to all his warped opinions, it had been her that stayed up all night just to keep him from tearing himself apart. Every time he waged a war on himself, she was at his side to try and stop the fight. Pepper had never done that. No, Pepper laughed at his "warped" opinions, Pepper let him fight himself down to nothing.

Then why had he tried to lay with Pepper that night? Instead of her? She who had always held his head up.

And here he was, laying in bed and fighting down the pain as he forced himself to remember the look on her face when she'd found him with Pepper.

It was the moment he'd taken her face into his hands as she cried that he realized that he'd never truly been a man. Just a boy looking for love in all the wrong places. A boy that, when he finally got the love he'd needed, had thrown it all away in a need to get drunk and laid. All he had wanted to do was fix it for her, to go back and fix it, but there was nothing he could. He'd already betrayed her and she had already started packing.

It hit him the hardest as she began out the door. Tony had said nothing, just gently taken her by the wrist to make her pause. She'd looked up at him, and he cringed inwardly when he noticed there were still tears in her eyes. "How could you do this to me? I loved you." Tony started to speak, opened his mouth and then realized there was nothing he could say to fix this.So she tugged her wrist out of his grasp and walked out.

Tony realized now that he had never good enough for her. He'd always been a boy and he would always be a boy, she deserved a man. After the hours he'd spent laying in bed fighting back the tears, he finally stopped, letting it happen.

In the midst of his tantrum, he threw the lamp next to the bed across the room. He fell still, exhausted over this situation. "Just make it go away...," he mumbled, running his fingers through his hair.

It had been those last three words. "I loved you." Past tense, _loved_. That's all he could hear, they'd been implanted in his head now and that's all he could concentrate on.

He was a failure.

Tony Stark had finally hit rock bottom.


End file.
